China at the beginning did not move well.

Italy blocked flights but if other countries do not block their flights....italy should have blocked all airports to be' reasonanly sure to avoid the spread of the virus.

Italy acted bad in End of Feb. Not creating a red zone in Bergamo.... now infected are probably around a milion

They closed all the bars. This coronavirus has officially pissed me off.

Someone knows how to send money or other forms of help to Italy and Croatia? I want to help.

@Kretoma: I don't believe they need money. For businesses it is a disaster if the banks don't trust them with loans however this is something where the goverments have to intervene and thus indirectly you as a taxpayer.


I tried to gather some information from official sources about why the German fatality rate is so low, especially compared to Italy:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/ --> 0.4%
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ --> 9%
however they kept avoiding the question when journalists were asking them. Imo this should mainly mean that Germany keeps relatively close track to their infected population while Italy has about 10 to 20 times more infected than officially reported.

With the current restrictions and the experience from China or South Korea it seems obvious what will happen in Italy. I had some trouble getting good numbers however the incubation period apparently lasts about 7 days and the sick days about 14 days. This should mean that at minimum 30 days after the Italy lockdown the cases should rapidly decline. If the nationwide quarantine started at 10th March the active cases in Italy should rapidly decline from 10th April on.

Edited 3/22/2020 10:48:05

Thanks to Carrie Lam for not closing all the borders with china

Why all you guys panicking so much in western countries? Hong Kong is normal exept for most people wearing masks. No hoarding, no stocking, supermarkets are functioning as normal with adequate stock

I guess the western world panics more?

My explanation would be this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_age_structure
Old people are more in danger and western states have the highest amount of old citizens.
Also no previous experience with SARS.

Edited 3/22/2020 14:45:45

@[V.I.W] recruiting time! Join us !, thank you for the update about Italy! What's happening there is extremely worrisome. Hang in there!

In the Canadian province of Quebec, we shut down our schools and non-essential workplaces very early on, when there were 15 positive cases of Covid-19. Our cases are still rising, though. We have 5 deaths and 181 positive cases right now. It can take very long to get tested, so our numbers may be underestimated. What angers me the most about this situation is that there are students and old people going out for non-essential business and hanging out together.

Edited 3/22/2020 15:06:36

About COVID-19:

These viruses have an extremely primitive and very fragile structure. It is just a filament of RNA used by a lipoprotein film, that is, a thin spherical membrane of fat and protein, very thin and that is not efficient against dehydration or as a thermal insulator.

Outdoors or dehydrated virus, it dries and dies. It must come out of the infected patient and enter the victim's mouth, nose or eyes and thus further infect and cause illness in him.

In China, they found that this virus stays alive for a few hours outside the patient's body and that life span will depend on where the virus fell after it left the patient's body. If this virus falls in a place exposed to sunlight, it dies in minutes, if it is under the midday sun, it dies in 2 or 3 minutes, it cannot withstand ultraviolet rays and also dehydrates quickly if it takes sunlight directly . In cloudy weather it lasts a little longer, maybe up to 15 minutes.

If this virus leaves the patient in a place without sunlight and directly affects him, a shaded place like inside the house or in a vehicle and the virus falls on paper, wood, clothes and hair, he survives for 6 hours. If the virus falls on smooth, shaded and cold surfaces such as glass, marbles, tiles, smooth metals, it survives for 12 hours.

Even though they are very small, viruses carry some weight and the tendency is to fall as soon as they leave in a cough, a sneeze or simply a person speaking is hitting his tongue on the roof of his mouth and his teeth and it will splash invisible droplets full of viruses that come out of the mouth. Even the patient's breathing alone is enough to release viruses into the air. Strategies exploring the enemy's weaknesses:

1. Social isolation. Fundamental that. People should not approach. The infected person may have no symptoms but is producing trillions of viruses in his body and these viruses come out of his breath.

2. Correct hygiene. When using public transport during an epidemic, it is 100% sure that in your clothes and hair there are live viruses of the disease and if only (1) one of these viruses reaches the mucous membranes of the eyes, mouth or nose, the person will be infected.

Strategy: Being aware of this, do not run your fingers over your eyes, mouth or nose. Get home and don't touch anything or anyone before washing your hands.

Remove the clothes you used and hang in a place with little movement and leave the clothes there for at least 8 hours, remember that on the clothes the viruses are alive for 6 hours.

You hang your clothes at night and in the morning the viruses are already dead and you can use those clothes again even if they haven't been washed.

3. Wash your hair. Do not go to sleep with infected hair. The virus is highly sensitive to the basic pH of soap, soap, detergent; the shampoo is not very efficient, almost neutral pH, use soap on the hair, it is better.

4. When touching knobs, taps or any smooth surface where others have touched before, then do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth, wash your hands as soon as possible.

5. Keep your home restricted to your closest family, do not receive visitors during quarantine. There is no point in taking all these precautions if the visits do not do the same. If possible, sleep in different rooms of the house.

6. Disinfectants. The virus is highly vulnerable to any disinfectant, bleach, Lysoform, Pinho Sol and, notably, ethyl alcohol because it can be applied to the skin but the others cannot.

The authorities recommend to the population the use of 70 ° alcohol gel that contains 70% alcohol and 30% water, they recommend this because it is not explosive, however the less diluted the alcohol the more disinfectant it is; in the laboratory it is common to use alcohol 92 ° but the sale to the public is prohibited because it is highly flammable and explosive but this is the one I use for myself, I need to be very careful not to set it on fire, accidents with this type of alcohol is usually very serious, the bottle explodes and ignites everything around it.

There is also absolute alcohol 100% alcohol and 0% water but this will burn your skin and is very expensive too. The 46 ° alcohol used for cleaning is weak but better than none, it is useful for hands and cleaning smooth surfaces.

7. Wear a surgical mask every time you leave home or approach other people.

Final remarks:

This virus has an extraordinary infectious capacity, this is its strong point but the disease it causes has a low mortality rate compared to the worst viruses that exist. Rabies rabies virus, 99.9% mortality rate. Ebola virus mortality rate of 66%.

The SARS-Cov 2 virus that causes the disease CoVID-19 has a mortality rate of up to 20% in elderly people with pre-existing diseases, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthmatics, aids, people undergoing cancer treatment and mainly immunosuppressed transplant recipients.

In adults the mortality rate is only 2%, mainly smokers die, in children the mortality rate is practically zero% with very rare exceptions.

Natural selection: Just as in the H1N1 swine flu epidemic, all people caught the virus, most developed antibodies and thereafter were immune to this disease.

This SARS-Cov 2 virus that causes CoVID-19 disease all people will get it too, most will develop antibodies and they will be immune but in this process it is necessary to stop the speed of spread of the virus because if it gets to everyone too quickly the health system will not be able to help 20% of the elderly population and 2 % of the adult population.

That everyone will be infected with this virus is certain, the restrictive measures that are being taken are just to slow down the transmission. The strongest and healthiest will survive, the weakest and most ill will die, nature works like that and there is no way to change that.

Edited 3/22/2020 17:41:48

@ riskyboy

We panicking because our governments moved too late. In italy we running Towards 5k dead.now we are closing everything and economy will suffer.

@kretoma

If you really interested i can check. Hospital needs funds.

@ Norman,

It s privacy. Most landers do not inform Berlin of infected ppl. I know for sure 6 are in intensive care in Amburg bit the official stats said they had 2 intensive care. Moreover they exclude from the dead for corona those with other healt issue ( dead with corona, no for corona).

It s privacy. Most landers do not inform Berlin of infected ppl. I know for sure 6 are in intensive care in Amburg bit the official stats said they had 2 intensive care. Moreover they exclude from the dead for corona those with other healt issue ( dead with corona, no for corona).

@ VIW recruiting time!
I know that the Italians are shaking their head at our low numbers and think we are forging them in order to be low. However the official statement from the Robert Koch Institut (the scientists responsible for gathering information about the virus) is that every death where the person had the virus counts towards the overall death toll. The only possible difference I see regarding gathering the data is if Italy indeed also checks post mortem whether the corona virus was involved while we Germans probably don't do that.

The official German response from the Robert Koch Institut isn't btw that our healthcare system is so much better than your Italians but that we are lacking a few weeks behind in the curve. Germany is currently expecting the storm however we aren't in it yet.

Here is an article wondering about the low German fatality rate:
https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
Since Corona tests don't directly save any lifes this imo really can only mean that the Italian outbreak is far worse than your numbers suggest.

Our official data is indeed lacking a bit behind since the data has to get transimtted to the Robert Koch Institute which doesn't work fully automaticcally. However those are just some details.

Edited 3/22/2020 22:37:22

One thing I'm surprised about Germany's cases is that they have over 26,000 cases, but they only have 110 deaths. Moreover, when you look at France, they have only 16,000 cases and with almost 700 deaths. Each country had the virus enter at around the same time. Strange though, that France has a extremely higher death rate than Germany. I don't know whether Germany has many people in critical condition or if, overall, they are just a younger and healthier country.

The United States already has almost 40K cases. 128 in my state now and one in my county. I am not going out much, if at all.

In Italy now, they have almost 60K cases and 5,500 deaths. Strange that they are well-under China's total cases and well-over China's death toll. Italy, yes, they do have a older population... but also a much higher death rate.

China did an amazing job handling it! They are a very cramped country with basically 1.4 billion people and they topped off their cases at 81K . Hopefully the government isn't hiding cases.

Italy, on the other hand, their government acted too late. Now their case % is MUCH higher China's because Italy population is only 60 million.

Also, the United States has now acted too late. they haven't even closed schools in some states with 40K cases in the country. Their case % is also much higher than China's. Italy's and USA's cases aren't showing any time of stopping.

People need to stop brushing this off, saying "oh, it's not big deal. If it can't effect me, i'll still break shelter-in-place order."
California has a shelter-in-place ORDER for to not leave your house. Oh, and now the beaches are crowed this morning; the hiking trails packed with people shoulder to shoulder.

Same thing in Washington D.C. - people went out in crowds to see the cherry blossoms.

Stay home - listen to shelter-in-place and quarantine-

Stop brushing this off; it's reality. It's the world we live in.

Edited 3/23/2020 11:30:16

it's all percentage based, though. America's got 40k cases; it's also got a population of 300+ million.
Germany's got 26k cases; it's population is 80+ million. Perspective. 😉
Oh, and Aussies have 1k cases; ~ 25 million population.

China did an amazing job handling it! They are a very cramped country with basically 1.4 billion people and they topped off their cases at 81K . Hopefully the government isn't hiding cases.

They physically barricaded people in their houses and dragged people who had symptoms off the streets into ambulances...

But sure, let's praise the Chinese Government :)

seriously, I think the USA should barricade people in their houses and drag off the sick into ambulances :)

Hong Kong: barricades a buiding with 300 people

USA: barricades building wth 1 person

Lockdown now reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee insert generic not sure if ironic anti Chinese sentiment

the whole USA needs to go into "you cant leave your house - if you do, you pay a fine" mode. The USA is too late. They reacted too late and now they will easily pass China in cases

USA has already easily passed China's case % for population and although this may the worst week in cases for the USA, and maybe even the world, that doesn't mean to let your guard down after this. Hong Kong, for an example, let their guard down last week and this week, and the cases there have doubled, close to tripling.

I don't know how many times people can say this and people don't listen. Stay at home and actually listen to Stay at Home Orders.

JUST IN: My county has declared a Stay at Home Order -

I know people wont obey that...

Cases in the USA have risen 17K just today! I mean, people are disobeying Orders and they are going to do non-essential things (beaches, hiking, cherry blossoms, parties….)

OH MY! Cases in the world have risen 37K today... this is really bad... oh no...
this could be maintained if it weren't for stupid people going out and disobeying Stay at Home Orders.
to stop that... people should have to pay a fine if they go out for anything non-essential.

Actually, I think they should put a law into European countries, Australia, Canada, and USA to not even leave your house; if u do u get fined. its so simple... people would listen then.

Edited 3/23/2020 22:24:28

If we go (close to) extinct, those idiots have themselves to blame.